Saturday, 30 March 2013

To relax or to go natural... Know your hair.

Hi Everyone,

I am so sorry I have been gone for so long. I haven't deserted you, I promise! I hope everyone's journey is going well.

So I have received a lot of questions about natural hair versus relaxed hair and how each affects our ability to grow long hair. This debate has been raging for a few years now. There are various opinions on relaxing versus not relaxing and the impact it has on the health of your hair and its ability to retain length. Some people believe that relaxed hair does not grow, some believe natural hair is difficult to manage, relaxed hair is damaged and weak, natural hair is dry, tangles easily and prone to breakage.... Like I said, various opinions. Today, I thought I'd weigh in on this.

While these claims may have some element of truth in them, they can be very misleading.

If you look around the blogsphere, you will find lots of relaxed heads with long, healthy hair. You will find natural heads with easy regimens. Relaxed hair does infact grow (I can attest to that :) and natural hair is not necessarily difficult to manage. The important thing is knowing what works for your hair, the effects of the environment on your hair and what your lifestyle can accommodate. I love the quote from the book 'The art of war' that goes: "Know your enemy, know yourself and in a hundred battles you will always be victorious". Relating this to hair, if you know your self (your hair) and you know your enemy (external factors - heat, relaxers, manipulation etc), you will be successful in your healthy hair journey.

That said, if the weather is humid and you insist on wearing your natural hair straight, you may find natural hair "difficult to manage", if you have natural 4c hair with no defined curl pattern and you are trying to wear a Kelis type high definition curly fro, you may find natural hair "difficult to manage". Alternatively, if you wear your 4c natural hair in 2 strand twists, braids, cornrows, updos, braid outs etc you may find that natural hair is a lot easier to manage than is portrayed. Same goes with relaxed hair. Yes, relaxed hair will NOT grow if you don't know how to treat it. If you don't deep condition your hair regularly to restore lost moisture and proteins, your hair wont grow. If you flat iron your hair, every other day, your hair wont grow and it's not because relaxed hair doesn't grow it's because you don't know your hair. Some people can use heat once a week, some people can't. Know your hair and half the 'battle' is won.

4c Hair

Kelis' and her curly fro

When my sister relaxes her hair, it looks good for a month and then starts to fall out in clumps. I relax my hair and my hair thrives. Her hair just can't deal with the damage caused by relaxers and yes relaxed hair is damaged hair, controlled damage but damage nonetheless. So while my hair can deal with the damage, hers can't, so she went natural. She now has gorgeous thick healthy hair. My point? While you can be inspired by others, we are all unique and figuring out what works for you while taking into consideration your hair type, your lifestyle, your taste, style preference, the weather, environment etc will help you set and achieve realistic goals.

We know that there are some staples that everyone should adher to: moisturizing, conditioning, gentle combing, protecting etc. These are pretty much standard and apply to everyone but when it comes to details like how often to wash your hair, how often to condition, how much heat your hair can take, whether or not to relax etc don't believe everything you hear/read. There is a bit of trial and error required to determine what works for you specifically. So get on it. You wont know until you try.

The reason why a lot of us struggle to achieve the hair we want is because we haven't come to understand what our hair really wants. Hopefully, this hair growth challenge will be a journey of self discovery as we learn more about our hair and how to get the best out of it.

I know we are only 2 weeks into the challenge. Have your learnt anything new about your hair so far? Let me know in the comment section. Also, if you have any questions or comments, suggestions on what my next post should be. Let me know.

30 comments:

Pls kindly recommend hair moisturizing spray product because it will be lot easier to manage my hair. Over here, the glycerin that is available is for the face/skin and I'm not sure that will work for my hair. Great blog you have here.

Any water based (liquid) leave in conditioner should do. You can try motion's nourish leave in conditioner spray. If you can't find anything you like, just use water. Put it in a spray bottle and spray on your hair daily.

Hi great blog and a good job U doing.!i have a 4c hair i am very natural ,for conditioning hair food,and i use coconut milk or natural yogurt.and i used shed butter(ori ) or castor oil or coconut oil or jojoba oil they are great leave in for me and mine kids......

Well done Lushstrands. I hav been using Texturizer since i started making my hair for two years now. but know i want to start using relaxer, I don't know which one to use cos I don't intend changing wen i start. pls I need a Very good Relaxer for a soft hair. Also can i Relax the tip too since it is still virgin? Jennew20.

Hi Anonymous, There are lots of good relaxers but I would recommend motions because that's what I use. I however find it to be quite strong so I make sure to wash it off almost immediately to avoid over processing my hair and/or burning my scalp. If your hair is texturized then it is not virgin and will probably break off if you relax it. You have to transition and either gradually cut of the texturized ends of big chop and cut if off all at once.

So I started my hair journey in Feb when I found your blog and realized, Nigerian hair can actually go long... I decided to braid my hair after I saw your post on protective styles and was tired of un-styled hair. I deep conditioned as you advised and cream my roots as frequently as I can, say at least twice a week. I live in a dry and windy city, so my guess is there my hair is probably really dirty by now(dilemma: hair might cut/break in the process of washing it in braids). Do you have any advice or comments to help me through this journey?

To deep condition, just apply your conditioner, leave it in for a few minutes then rinse out. For more intensive treatment, you can wear a heat cap or seat under a hooded dryer for a few minutes before rinsing out.

You said we can use just water to moisturize our hair everyday, won't it smell and get itchy (I've got lots of dandruff on my hair)

Last week, I took off my weave after about 6 weeks and though my hair increased in length, there was a lot of breakage (I've not retouched now in four months, I hope to retouch sometime in August) I tried detangling like you advised before washing but the result was bad as my hair was all over the place.

Should I comb first before washing or just detangle better, although I think it is worse combing after washing.

Should I change my relaxer? I currently use gentle treatment but I am considering motions relaxer.

Do you know where I can get apple-cider vinegar in Abuja?

Is goya olive oil advisable for the hair?

Lastly, do you think i'll damage my hair if I don't retouch in say 8-9 months?

If your hair is very dry, detangling without breakage is difficult, so you could condition it, let it dry and then detangle it. You may refer to this post for more information on how to detangle your hair.

Also, if you've had your hair in a protective style for a while, when you take down the style all the shed hairs will be released so it is normal to see a quite a bit of shed hair. This is fine as far as it is shed hairs and not broken hairs.

No, don't change your relaxer.

I don't know where you can get apple cider vinegar in abj but acv should be available in any major supermarket. Like park and shop or shop rite.

If you don't relax your hair in 8 months, you should wear it in protective styles. Combing and manipulating two textures frequently will cause a lot of breakage. So yes, you can stretch your relaxer as long as you want but try not to manipulate your hair during this period as it is susceptible to breakage.

Hi,I've never used green tea, I've used black tea though. It is supposed to reduce shedding, not sure how it works but I wasn't very consistent so I didn't observe any noticeable difference in the amount of shedding I have.

hey, your blog is sooo helpful!!!i started the hair challenge a while ago, i had just taken out my braids, so i cowashed and saturated with olive oil and den combed i lost a bit of hair but significantly less dan usual and did a bit of calabarizing, i carried for abt a month(wasn't my hottest look but i'm determined. then i did a deep conditioning mask of avocado, honey and coconut oil, i tried 2 comb after i had carried d mask for 40mins but it was hell(i'vent retouched since december). i den roller set my hair and d next day went to get my weave in, my hairdresser tried to comb the hair gently cos i was adamant on how he combed, my hair was falling like everywhere, have never seen my hair break like that, my hairdresser actually said my hair grew, but the breakage was alarming!!!did i do something wrong dat caused this?

Thanks so much for this blog. When you are using wigs as a protective style, how do you wash your hair? Do you wash with the canerows still in? And how do you dry it? Do you airdry or is it ok to use a hooded dryer? Please let us know!!

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think what you meant was that you won't retain your hair rather than it will not grow. Hair always grows (except in rare cases where there is an underlying internal condition - you'd probably be bald if this were the case) otherwise some of us who relax our hair wouldn't need touch ups every few weeks/months for our new growth. Breakage makes it seem as though our hair ins't growing; it is, though! The ends are breaking off just as quickly (or quicker) than the hair is growing from the scalp.

You are absolutely right. I used "not growing" rather than "not retaining length" because I was trying to reference the misconception that relaxed hair "does not grow". But yes, you are right, hair pretty much always grows, the challenge is in preventing breakage and retaining length.

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Hi,this is my first time here and I most say,am really impressed doe confused about somefins.....am trying to go naturale..lol,I haven't retouched in 7mnths,my hair is not full,breaks a lot...a whole lot whenever I comb and I have a prob wiv my hairline*sighs*.....is there anything I can do to have a beautiful hair?waiting for ur recommendation.....tanx